[Paraview] batch create thumbnails for multiple .vtk files?

[David Doria]

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 4:49 AM, Rob Nugen
<users-paraview.org at robnugen.com> wrote:
> When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one person
> to visualize the .vtk files which have been collected from another,
> and to assume among the powers of the server that the separate and
> manual loading of each would cause undue stress upon the user, a
> decent respect to the opinions of the list requires that they should
> declare a script which impels the computer to do the visualization.
>
> That's my creative way of asking if anyone has written a script to go
> through thousands of .vtk files and create a screenshot of each.
> During this project, we've created and collected a great number of
> .vtk files, and want to essentially be able to make thumbnails of them
> all so we know which should be saved and which can be discarded.
>
> The optimal solution would allow specifying the camera angle to be run
> for each screenshot.
>
> Searching for "paraview 'save state'" (no outer quotes) seems to be in
> the right direction.  I found
> http://www.itk.org/Wiki/ParaView/Python_Scripting but I don't see that
> the same filters can be saved and applied to a different data set.
>
>  Thanks!
>  - Rob

This should do the trick:
http://paraview.org/Wiki/Take_a_Screenshot_of_a_VTP_File
(linked to from here: http://paraview.org/Wiki/Python_recipes (this
could use some organizing) ).

Or you probably don't need Paraview at all for this - why not use VTK directly?

http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/VTK/Examples/Cxx/Utilities/Screenshot

David